As the US economy continues to dig itself out of the recession, banking reforms and financial accountability top the list of priorities. In November, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) brought business process management to its core mission of financial regulation with the planned introduction of the BPM-based Central Application Tracking System (CATS). That's just one of two critical functions the agency has turned over to BPM software.
The OCC oversees national banking laws for the U.S. Department of Treasury, and establishes rules and regulations governing the banking operations.
CATS will be essential to the OCC's automated submission and processing of paper-based licensing and regulatory filings for U.S. commercial banks. The system will manage the licensing and chartering of all U.S. federal banks going forward, for the continued stability and security of the nation's financial system.
Equally importantly, OCC's use of BPM software sidesteps a fundamental limitation of commercial off the shelf software applications ñ namely, an inability to transfer to other business problems than those for which they were licensed. With the Appian BPM Suite, OCC is not only addressing regulatory guidelines, it is also ensuring physical security at the agency.
The BPM-based Personnel Administration and Security System (PASS) is a new enterprise system under development by OCC to automate on-boarding, off-boarding and security processing for all agency employees and contractors. BPM software is being used to create the system ñ an important example of how an agency can use a single license for multiple essential operating functions.
The news from OCC is continued evidence that high-profile federal agencies are turning to BPM to transform agency operations and performance of core functions critical to agency success. And in today's economy, what's more critical than the integrity of our financial system?
